


Happenstance

by bea_bickerknife



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Approximately 667 tons of banter, Bisexual Murder Girlfriends, Entirely understandable marital infidelity, F/F, References to assorted felonies, Slow Burn, Somewhat gratuitous use of Sebald Code, meet not-so-cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-28 22:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10841040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bea_bickerknife/pseuds/bea_bickerknife
Summary: You can't start a fire without a spark.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [virginianwolfsnake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/virginianwolfsnake/gifts).



> As ever, I own none of the characters in this work (except Ivan - hey there, Ivan!), nor do I derive any remuneration from its posting.

Forty-seven minutes.

She frowned at her watch, as though the precisely-crafted mechanisms and gleaming gold bezel deserved some of the blame for the fact that, forty-seven minutes after the appointed time, her date had still failed to materialize.

If you have ever found yourself in the position of enduring a piece of alleged entertainment known as a romantic comedy, then you have almost certainly encountered the trope known in such films as the meet-cute, a phrase which refers to a set of highly contrived and largely implausible circumstances in which two fictional characters encounter one another for the first time. This meeting typically ushers in a series of supposedly humorous interactions between the pair, who spend the subsequent hour and a half falling madly and irresponsibly in love with one another despite a plethora of obstacles and mishaps of the type that most responsible adults manage to avoid through clear, direct communication. In Georgina Orwell’s case, her introduction to the fair-haired professor who was now, she confirmed, 48 minutes late, fit the description.

Staggering up the steps to her newly-acquired brownstone in the University District at the end of a long day of unpacking, carrying one final Herculean load of books in her arms, she had tripped. The consequent avalanche of optometric texts spilled down onto the sidewalk, where Charles Huxley, professor of statistics and possessor of exceedingly kind green eyes, stooped to pick up the author copy of _Advanced Ocular Science_ that had collided with his loafers. He struck up a conversation, insisting upon helping her into her house in the interest of preventing another accident.  

He had seemed like the quintessence of a gentleman: well-read, well-bred, and handsome in that specific way that implied a long family history of financially- and genetically-advantageous matchmaking. In short, he appeared to her the exact inverse of the man she had just faked her death in Paltryville to escape, and that fact alone compelled her to accept his invitation to dinner.  

Gentlemen, however, did not keep ladies waiting for fifty minutes in a painfully chic rooftop restaurant, and while she hoped that this indicated that he did not qualify as a gentleman, Georgina couldn’t shake the creeping suspicion that he did, and she had simply failed to come across as enough of a lady.

Shifting in her seat, thankful that her black cocktail dress didn’t show sweat, she snapped her manicured fingers to summon a waiter. “Laphroaig. Ten-year. Neat.”

The overly-coiffed young man in the white apron glanced over at the place setting across from her with a small, knowing nod. “It’ll be on the house.” She watched as he placed her order with the bartender and struck up a conversation with a pair of servers lingering nearby, quickly averting her eyes as three sets of pitying eyes turned in her direction.

 _They can obviously smell desperation_ , she groused inwardly. _Vultures, all of them_.

At that very moment, the restaurant’s glass double doors swung open and a tall figure began to make its way confidently toward her table.


	2. Chapter 2

“Mrs. Squalor, I’m so sorry, we didn’t know you’d be coming, you don’t have a reser–"

With a wave of her hand, Esmé succeeded in dissuading the maître d’ from finishing his frantic apology and continued to stride purposefully across the restaurant. Her shoes – cherry red, with the sort of heels that thrill podiatrists and other foot enthusiasts – tapped out a pleasantly imperious cadence on the marble floor as she approached her usual corner booth, but abruptly fell silent when she found it already occupied.

Glaring down her aquiline nose, she cleared her throat. “You’re sitting at my table.”

“How interesting.” Georgina didn’t even bother to glance up from the menu she’d been perusing for the past fifty-three minutes. “You’re standing at mine.”

With an impatient little huff, Esmé decided to clear up the obvious confusion. “I don’t think you understand. _I_ ,” she declared, drawing herself up to her full height, “am Esmé Gigi Geniveve Squalor, the City’s sixth-most-important financial advisor, and _this,_ ” she gesticulated, “is the best booth in this restaurant, therefore _you_ ” – and here she pointed a long, sharp-nailed index finger at Georgina – “are sitting at my table.”

Snapping the menu closed, Georgina looked up, taking in the angular limbs, the startling juxtaposition of stark white skin and jet-black hair, and the one-shouldered white minidress embroidered with a pattern of stylized silver eyes. Fixing the intruder with a withering stare from over the top of her glasses, she replied unkindly, but perfectly in kind. “Well, _I_ am Dr. Georgina Orwell, and _this_ has been a vastly frustrating day, therefore _you_ need to find yourself another table.” 

Offense registered on Esmé’s sharp features, replaced almost immediately by shrewd curiosity. “I didn’t know this was a sad occasion.”

“Yes, well.” The optometrist’s expression remained inscrutable, and she scanned the restaurant carefully before settling her attention back on Esmé. “At least the world is quiet here.”

As bold as brass – a phrase which here means “despite the fact that she had not been invited to do so” – Esmé slid into the booth, peering intently into Georgina’s eyes. _Gunmetal_ , she thought. _How very appropriate_. _But which side is sh –_

The solution to her dilemma presented itself in the form of a piercing _ding_ from the call bell in the kitchen. As any restaurant worker can tell you, should he or she have sufficient time, energy, and inclination despite working an inordinate number of inconvenient hours for an inadequate salary, a call bell is a small chime that creates a loud, clear tone to alert members of the wait staff to the presence of a completed order. Under certain circumstances, however, the ringing of a bell can also alert members of a secret organization to the presence of a covert message, and the peal from the kitchen kindled the spark of a shared idea between the women at the table.

Esmé began, the cadence of her speech suddenly stilted and peppered with pauses as she considered her diction. “ _Do_ you have any idea why it’s been so terrible for _you_? Because some days the world is just spoiling for a _fight_ , and I’m never sure whether I want to fight back, _or_ if I should simply stay in bed and not even _start_.” 

“Well,” replied Georgina, far more smoothly but with a slight, unnatural stress on certain words, “I certainly won’t presume to speak for you, but _it’s_ always seemed to me that when I wake up on _a_ day like that, which I did today, it’s a real _pleasure_ if I can work out some new and satisfying way _to_ smack the world around a little, which should at least _burn_ off some excess energy.”

The call bell reverberated once again. “You’re absolutely right. It is.” Esmé grinned, revealing sharp, white teeth. “It’s good to meet you, Doctor…what did you say your name was?"

“Orwell. Georgina Orwell.” Reaching across the table for a handshake, she found herself entirely unprepared as the other woman clasped her by the fingers and brought the proffered hand up to her lips instead. Finishing her introduction, her voice sounded fractionally smokier than it had when she began. "But please, call me Georgina.”

Esmé looked up at her companion from under her lashes. “Oh, I _thoroughly_ intend to.” Releasing her hand, she continued. “Doctor of what, incidentally?”

“Optometry, mostly,” Georgina replied. “I’ve been appreciating your dress.” _And what’s underneath it_ , piped up a blunt but by no means incorrect voice in the back of her mind.

“Of course you have.” The tip of her index finger traced along the garment’s sloping neckline. “It’s dreadfully _in_.”

Shifting her attention back up to her face, Georgina shot her a quizzical look. “In what?”

Esmé burst out laughing, as though the question were the punchline to a particularly entertaining joke. “Oh, not in, _in_ ,” she explained once the giggling had subsided, as though additional vocal emphasis somehow clarified matters. “ _In_ as in _in_ vogue, _in_ fashion, _in_ dispensable.” She shook her head in amusement. “‘ _In what_ ,’ honestly…”

“Ah, yes,” said the optometrist, failing to entirely stifle a roll of her eyes. “How ridiculous of me to ask.” _She’s gorgeous when she laughs_ , pointed out that overly-honest voice, _even if she’s laughing at you_. _She’s gorgeous the rest of the time, too. Shame about the ring_ , it added as Esmé reached out with her left hand to toy with a candle at the center of the table _._

Unlike ringworm, the ring around a grimy bathtub, or a ring of torch-bearing townsfolk closing in around a confused and frightened elderly woman with a questionable reputation, a wedding ring generally carries positive connotations – a phrase which here means “symbolizes the idealized happiness of two people who have chosen to spend a considerable portion of their lives together, despite the knowledge that this arrangement will almost certainly try their patience and result in a series of arguments about the proper method by which clothing should be sorted when it becomes laundry.”     

The ring gleaming ostentatiously on the fourth finger of Esmé Squalor’s left hand, however, symbolized boredom. In signing their marriage contract, Jerome had provided her with the old-money cachet of his family name and strategic access to the bitterly-contested tunnel system that ran below his penthouse; the instant he laid down his pen, he himself became utterly superfluous. It seemed to Esmé that his doughy, deferential presence sapped the color out of any room he entered, so that he existed in a perpetual haze of monotonous drab against even the flashiest of her wallpaper choices, and so, in an effort to spend as little time as possible feeling him drain the vividness out of _her_ , she threw herself into work. Twelve-hour days, six-day weeks, and round-the-clock tactical flattery not only kept her away from her husband’s overpowering dullness, but also, she had discovered in the business section of this morning’s Daily Punctilio, secured her a spot as the youngest-ever financial advisor to make the City’s top ten list. _Five mysterious deaths_ , she had calculated, _and that top spot is mine_. Not bothering to share the news with Jerome, she had decided to take herself out to dinner to celebrate.

Now, with an intensely appealing woman frowning down at it from across the table she hadn’t been intending to share, Esmé became acutely aware of the fact that she had forgotten to remove Jerome’s ring.   

A carefully neutral comment: “It’s lovely.”

“It’s _bullshit_ ,” countered Esmé. “That’s what it is. Do you know how we spent our honeymoon?”

Lurid, unbidden images of white lace and tangled sheets and bare limbs flashed through Georgina’s mind and she shifted against the leather upholstery, crossing her legs under the table. “I can’t even imagine,” she lied. 

“He took me to Paris. On our first night, he had a positively _dreadful_ reaction to something in the champagne, and he spent the rest of the week recuperating at the hotel while I visited every atelier on the Left Bank and every boutique on the Right.”

“To distract yourself?"

“Yes.” Esmé leaned in conspiratorially and lowered her voice. “From the fact that I underestimated the dosage.”

With a wicked laugh, Georgina reached out to lay her hand over Esmé’s, the diamond digging into her palm suddenly as irritatingly inconsequential as a pebble stuck in a shoe. “Rookie mistake. So, what’s wrong with him? Terrible hygiene? Steals your clothes? Tried to drown you under a bridge?”

Esmé huffed. “If only he were that interesting. Even _attempted_ manslaughter requires a spine, or at the very least an _argument_ , and anyway, he worships the ground I walk on.”

“Well, I’ve _always_ said it’s no fun when they love taking orders. On the other hand,” she paused briefly, glancing down into her whiskey and trying to sound casual, “I can’t fault him for the latter.”

A protracted pause followed, and Georgina looked up from the amber liquid to find Esmé watching her with an amused smile. “So you _have_ been flirting.” Her brow furrowed. “My _god,_ you’re _atrocious_ at it. I barely even noticed.”

“Yes, well.” The optometrist patted her lips delicately with her cocktail napkin. “ _Some of us_ appreciate the value of subtlety.”

“Yes, well,” mimicked Esmé, dropping her gaze slowly to scrutinize the soft, pale skin of Georgina’s neck with a peculiar hungry interest before following the neckline of her dress, admiring the way it clung to the compact but ample curves of her body and halting regretfully when the table obscured further inspection. “ _Some of us_ know subtlety is _out_.”

“Is it, now _?_ ” asked Georgina, apparently taking this as a challenge. “Well, in that case,” she began in a heated undertone, “I should probably mention - purely in the interest of my reputation, you understand - how close I am to dragging you into the bathroom of this ridiculous restaurant, shoving you up against the wall, and –”

“Good evening, ladies! Are we ready to order?”

In twenty years of waitressing, the cheerful, ponytailed server had never heard anyone order two specials of the day _quite_ so hurriedly or with _quite_ so much venom as Mrs. Squalor did that evening.


	3. Chapter 3

As it turned out, the special that night was a truly ambrosial rack of lamb, but all Georgina would remember about it later was watching crimson lips wrap around the bones.

The term _smitten_ is a curious one. A linguist will tell you that the earliest recorded use of its modern form dates to the 13 th century, but that it derives from an Old English term related to the Dutch _smijten_ and the German _schmeissen,_ neither of which appears in the sorts of phrasebooks and travel guides written for aspiring Europeans. A grammarian will tell you that the word is a past participle of the verb “to smite,” and that, when employed as an adjective, it refers either to having been struck violently, to having become grievously afflicted with disease, or, rather incongruously, to the often violent and grievous experience of having become infatuated with another person. A romantic will tell you that only this last definition matters.

Neither of the women sharing the corner booth considered herself a linguist or a grammarian, and both eschewed romanticism with a firm hand – a phrase which here means “viewed sentimentality, excessive vulnerability, and an unshakable belief in the power of love as character flaws to be avoided in themselves and exploited in others.” In fact, the longer the evening wore on and the further the conversation wound through an array of topics varying from the comfortably mundane (the comparative advantages of various travel destinations) to the criminally unusual (the comparative advantages of various methods of weapons concealment) to the overtly criminal (the comparative advantages of various incendiary compounds), the more apparent it became that the financier and the optometrist shared an unusual affinity for one another, and by the time the slightly shell-shocked waitress had plucked up the courage to return to the table with after-dinner menus, the pair had fallen into a curiously familiar intimacy.          

Georgina leafed efficiently through the pages depicting cakes, pastries, and sugary cocktails. “Would you like something for dessert?”

“Oh, I’m absolutely _dying_ for dessert,” said Esmé, and reached over to pluck the menu out of her hands. Instead of perusing its contents, however, she set it aside with her own to be cleared away with the plates. By way of explanation, she leaned back and fixed Georgina with a ravenous stare. “But I think we both know I’m already looking at mine.”  

Abruptly, Georgina rose from the table. “I’ll call us a cab,” she said, sidling out of the booth and taking a few steps toward the bank of telephones she had seen on her way in. _That was five hours ago_ , she realized with a start. _Even if you don’t count the first fifty-three minutes, we’ve been talking for four hours._ A faint frown crossed her face. _I can’t even talk to **myself** for four hours. _

Long, cool fingers seized her wrist and Esmé pulled her down to land rather inelegantly beside her. “I have a car waiting outside.”

“What, you’ve been running the meter this whole time?” balked Georgina, a little less stridently than she might have if the sensation of the financier’s hand trailing up her arm hadn’t distracted her. “That must cost a fortune.” 

“Of course it does.” Esmé leaned closer, her perfume heady and spicy and deliciously overwhelming, “But when I want something, I don’t make a habit of waiting.” As if to prove the point, she inclined her head and brushed her lips over the crook of Georgina’s neck, darting her tongue out to taste the soft skin there

“If you don’t stop,” warned Georgina, biting back a moan, “I swear to God I'll have my way with you on top of this table.”

Esmé smirked against her. “You _really_ don’t know me very well if you think that’s a threat.”

“ _And_ I’ll make you pay the public indecency fine afterwards.”

“Oh, _fine,_ ” she said, pulling back and checking her lipstick in the glass of the tabletop. “But Jerome is out of town on business and there are seventy-one bedrooms in the penthouse and I think we can thoroughly ruin at _least_ five of them tonight if we leave now.” With that, she gave her a none-too-gentle shove toward the end of the booth. “So let’s go.”

They had only to wait a few moments outside the restaurant before an elevator arrived, preceded by a cheerful metallic sound that reminded Georgina of an old-fashioned cash register. She froze midway over the threshold. “We forgot to pay.”  

“Then they can put it on Jerome’s tab,” Esmé assured her, pulling her into the lift. “I’m sure he’ll be _thrilled_ to hear I’ve finally enjoyed myself at a dinner he paid for.”

Before doors had fully closed, Georgina found herself pinned against the wood-paneled wall by a lithe, warm body. Staring down at her, eyes glittering in the dim light, Esmé whispered two desperate syllables.

“ _Kiss me_.”

The swooping sensation in the Esmé's stomach when their lips met had nothing to do with lurch of the elevator beginning its descent. Georgina, it turned out, kissed the way she talked: confidently, with a disarming combination of forthrightness and subtlety, and she tasted as smoky-rich and intoxicating as the Scotch she had nursed all evening. Her hands ghosted over the small of Esmé’s back and she experienced a disconcertingly intimate sensation as the younger woman whimpered into her mouth.

“Sensitive, are we?” she teased, pulling back to catch her breath. 

In fact, Esmé Squalor, the City’s sixth-most important financial advisor, unhappy wife and attempted merry widow of the heir to the Squalor fortune, erstwhile stage actress and present arbiter of taste, had never in her expansive and colorful romantic history felt so thoroughly fucked after a kiss. Sagging back against the wall, she looked over at the woman responsible for the flush on her cheeks and the weakness in her knees and the lightness of her head. _Not a hair out of place_ , she marveled. _Oh, she’s **good**_. With a shaky intake of breath, she managed a reply, though physical evidence had long since rendered verbal response redundant. “You have _no_ idea.”

Just then, the doors slid open. Smack-dab in front of them – a phrase which here means “blocking their exit from the elevator by choosing to wait in the exact center of its narrow doorway” – stood a tall, husky blond man in slacks and a maroon sweater-vest, shifting from foot to foot in obvious agitation.

Georgina gave a start, but addressed him with absolute composure. “Professor Huxley.”

“Doctor Orwell!” he exclaimed. “I’m so dreadfully sorry! My research kept me late in my office, and when I looked up, five hours had passed, so I was on my way to ask the maître d’ if you had left a message for m–”

Esmé cut in. “If you were so busy playing with your _calculator_ that you forgot about _her_ ,” and here her arm slipped around Georgina’s waist, “then you’re obviously an idiot, which she can’t help you with, and blind, which she probably can, but _only_ during regular business hours.” She glared at the professor and made a dismissive gesture with her free hand. “So step aside.”

Charles Huxley’s statistical mind had projected several outcomes for this evening, but none of them had taken into account the possibility of public castigation at the hands of a rail-thin woman in absurd shoes and an eye-print minidress, and he stepped hurriedly out of the way before addressing the optometrist again. “Y-your friend is right,” he said, “I’ve been unforgivably foolish. Let me make it up to y–”

“No.” She seized her companion’s hand. “We’re leaving.”

Halfway out the door, Esmé turned back. “Oh, and Professor?” she called across the lobby, apparently heedless of the assorted onlookers whose attention she inadvertently attracted, “Enjoy the rest of your evening. I know we will.”

Both women had the good graces to wait until they were outside before they burst out laughing.


	4. Chapter 4

“When you said you had a car waiting,” frowned Georgina from under the awning, where she stood in an effort to keep dry despite the summer downpour that must have begun at some point during dinner, “I assumed you meant a cab, not the Queen Mary.”

“Well, it’s the same idea, isn’t it? A limousine is _practically_ a cab, only it’s longer and the driver smells better and it’s _much_ more fashionable.” Esmé wrinkled her nose. “You didn’t _really_ think I’d ride in a _taxi_ , did you?”

Georgina rolled her eyes and slid across the back seat to settle beside the far door. _In retrospect_ , she admitted as Esmé strode up to the driver and struck up a lively argument over his choice of a flat cap rather than a trilby, _I probably should have guessed._ Rain spattered against the window, each droplet briefly capturing the lights of the City in its fragile dome before succumbing to gravity, and as she watched the bright and ever-shifting pattern on the glass, her body buzzing warmly with whiskey and anticipation, she basked in the first moment of unadulterated contentment she had felt since _him_.  

If you have ever stumbled across something and inferred immediately that it was not intended for you, such as a birthday cake with someone else’s name on it, or a love letter erroneously delivered to you rather than to your neighbor, or the sight of your sister and an exceptionally flexible trapeze artist testing the tensile strength of your dining room chandelier, then you can understand the peculiar feeling of intrusion Esmé Squalor experienced upon folding herself into the back of the automobile. The softness of Georgina’s expression startled her, and it struck her as so incongruous that she felt for a moment as though she were interrupting something intensely private.

 _Don’t be ridiculous_ , she chided herself. _It can’t possibly be an intrusion when you’re the one who owns the limousine._ Nevertheless, and entirely without conscious intent, she slipped her arm around Georgina’s shoulders far more gently than she had initially intended. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” she murmured, resting her other hand lightly just above her knee. “Your professor’s probably still in the lobby, if you’d rather go back inside…”

Instantly, suspicion hardened Georgina’s features. “What?” she demanded, a little too quickly and much too acerbically. “Don’t like what you see after all?” _Twice in one night. Well, it’s not as if it’s the first time **that’s** happened. _Her hand groped for the door handle. _She’s too young for you anyway. She’d hate herself in the morning, and you’d be a cocktail party anecdote by tomorrow afternoon._

Sharp nails dug into her bicep. “If my driver would _get going,_ ” Esmé called pointedly at the front seat before lowering her voice back to a fierce whisper, “And unless you really want to leave, I have every intention of spending tonight showing you _exactly_ how much I like what I see.” She leaned in closer, breath tickling Georgina’s ear as she toyed with the hem of her dress. “ _Repeatedly_. Until you beg me to stop.”

Slowly, Georgina withdrew her hand and turned back toward Esmé. “I don’t beg,” she said. Her face remained impassive, but her body seemed to relax fractionally as the limousine pulled away from the curb.

“Oh, of _course_ you don’t.” Long, slender fingers slipped under her skirt, stroking the sensitive skin of her thigh. “That’s why I’m going to enjoy it so much.”


	5. Chapter 5

Dotted with orderly golden squares of light from the windows of the sorts of people who prefer to spend their evenings at home, the edifice of 667 Dark Avenue looked even more striking at night, but neither woman took particular note of it when the limousine came to a halt outside. Esmé, of course, had lived in the building long enough that its imposing appearance had become quotidian – a word which here means “commonplace and trivial, both because she saw it every day and because she failed to find architecture especially impressive if it did not feature buttresses, spires, or onion domes.” By contrast, Georgina considered herself an aficionado of the Brutalist style, but tonight she found her attention drawn not to the precise, efficient, and overwhelming effect of black concrete and glass, but to the precise, efficient, and overwhelming way Esmé was kissing her collarbone.

The limousine door opened with a _clunk_ , a sudden gust of ozone-laden air, and a discreet cough from the chauffeur. “Here we are, ladies,” he announced, as though this fact might perhaps come as a surprise.

Judging from the little start Esmé gave at the interruption, he was at least partially correct. She disentangled herself from Georgina and slipped out onto the pavement with practiced ease, the optometrist following somewhat less gracefully behind.

“How much of that do you think he saw?” asked Georgina as the lobby door closed behind them.

Esmé jabbed the penthouse elevator’s call button. “Enough that his wife is in for a surprise when he gets home, probably. Why?"

“Aren’t you worried he might mention something to your husband?”

Ornate doors slid open and the pair stepped inside. “Oh, I haven’t worried about that sort of thing in _ages_. To begin with, even if he did, Jerome wouldn’t care. Well,” she corrected, “he might _care_ , but he wouldn’t _argue_ , and that’s more or less the same thing. In any case, he won’t need to do either, because Ivan knows _perfectly_ well which side of his bread is buttered. Or at least he knows who pays off the key witnesses every time he’s under investigation for whatever it is he does in his free time.”

“Ah.” Only the muted _swoosh_ of the elevator’s upward journey averted complete silence. “So the sidearm is recreational, then.”

“It is _now_ , although he did try body-guarding me once.” Quizzical grey eyes peered up at her. “Five do-gooders and five dart guns on a dead-end road, so _naturally_ when I screamed for help, he assumed I needed backup.”

“And?”

“I didn’t. I needed a shovel.”

Georgina looked momentarily impressed, but then her eyes narrowed. “And I’m supposed to believe you dug five graves with hands like _that_?” she asked, gesticulating toward Esmé’s manicure.

“Oh, don’t be absurd. I dug three and Ivan took care of the rest, and _you_ ” she added, tapping the sharply-filed red nail of her index finger just below the hollow of Georgina’s throat before trailing it lightly downward, “would be _surprised_ what I can do with my hands.”  

“Then go on.” Stepping forward, Georgina stared up over the top of her spectacles in a way that evoked fines and overdue books and unconscionable acts between rows of dusty shelves. “Surprise me.”

Just then, the elevator opened onto the 48th floor and Esmé dragged her across the landing faster than Georgina would have assumed probable for a woman with six-inch spindles strapped to her feet. _Then again_ , she admitted, _you know what they say about assumptions, and nothing about tonight has been probable anyway._ The door swung inward. _Keyless entry. I suppose that shouldn’t come as a –_

“Surprise!” cried Jerome Squalor.

“ _Jesus!_ ” exclaimed Esmé, an avowed atheist since Hebrew school.

 _No wonder she tried to kill him_ , thought Georgina.

Esmé regained her composure. “Jerome, you’re…” She paused before waving a hand vaguely up and down to encompass his carefully-combed hair, his formal suit, and his polished shoes, “…here.”

“Why, of course I’m here! When I saw the news in the Daily Punctilio this morning, I chartered the first helicopter home. It was quite difficult to get away in the middle of my consulting project, but once I explained that my wife had just been named the City’s sixth-most-important financial advisor, no one wanted to argue when I told them I had a party to plan.” He flung the door open fully to reveal a grand entryway packed to the rafters with a sea of impeccably-dressed guests. “Black tie, of course.”

“How very…” began Esmé. “I mean, you’ve really…” She paused. “Well, this certainly is… _unexpected_ ,” she managed at last, in a tone better suited to the announcement of a sudden death than a spontaneous party in her honor.

“Well, don’t just stand there – come in!” Jerome swept his arm out to the side in what he probably considered a gracious gesture of welcome. “Come in, come in, come in,” he repeated jovially, “and the more, the merrier, so bring your friend, too.”

“Oh, I _really_ don’t think my tie is black enough,” Georgina demurred demurely – a phrase which here means “objected sweetly and politely, as though she were not at that very moment thinking something more along the lines of _I would rather die, and I relish the thought of taking you with me_.” With that, she turned to leave.

He sounded both disappointed and perplexed. “Well, I don’t want to argue with y–”

“Then _don’t_ ,” interrupted two voices in perfect unison, and Esmé continued. “ _Honestly_ , Jerome, if you’ll just let me say goodnight to my _friend_ , I’ll come right back in and you can celebrate me all you want, so go back inside and make a little speech to get everyone excited, will you?” Without waiting for an answer, she closed the door. “ _There_. They should all be asleep in about twenty seconds.”

“You know, I thought you might have been exaggerating about him,” said Georgina in a low tone.

“And now?”

“And now I’d love to meet your acting teacher, because whoever it was did a _hell_ of a job developing your gift for understatement.” She yawned. “I didn’t know narcolepsy was communicable through conversation.”

Clearly audible in the hallway, Jerome’s voice droned out a soporific encomium – a term which here means “tiring speech filled with tired platitudes that had already begun to tire his audience” – praising his wife for her dedication, accomplishments, and passion, and Georgina felt an unexpected twinge of secondhand offense at the fact that he was managing to make the woman in front of her sound mundane.

His dedicated, accomplished, and passionate wife, meanwhile, took a step toward her. “Then let’s make sure you have something worth staying awake for,” she murmured.

 _If he decides to check on what’s taking so long_ , the sensible part of her brain warned, _you’re sunk_ , but then Esmé was pushing her back against the penthouse door, her full lips and her pointed tongue and her wicked, wandering hands making quick work of sensibility.

Never having successfully hypnotized herself, and being neither foolhardy nor foolish enough to entrust the job to anyone else, Georgina found herself unprepared for this abrupt and near-complete cessation of coherence. Kissing Esmé in a public elevator after four hours of flirtation and conversation had felt like a triumph. Being kissed _by_ Esmé on a secluded landing with her husband and several hundred of the City’s most respected public figures anxiously awaiting her arrival a few feet away felt like surrender under the riskiest of terms, yet the single thought remaining in her head, throbbing there like a pulse, still held a ring of victory – _she wants you_. _She wants you. **She** wants **you**._

 _She wants you. She wants you. She **wants** you,_ thrilled Esmé as she insinuated her bare thigh between Georgina’s. The words _hot_ and _wet_ sprang instantly to mind, accompanied almost immediately by the phrases _silk stockings,_ _garter belt_ and _going to kill Jerome,_ and only her acute awareness of the thinness of the walls kept her from moaning when Georgina ground herself into the contact. Rocking her hips slightly in the interest of providing more dynamic friction (and, she admitted, because of the sinfully perfect way the other woman’s hipbone now pressed against the ache between her own legs), she felt heat begin to pool low in her abdomen and realized that they had fallen into a rhythm here with the same curious ease that they had in conversation over dinner. Before she had a chance to determine whether she found this development disconcerting or intriguing, however, Georgina pulled back.

“Stop.” The command came on the heels of a ragged gasp. “Esmé, _stop_.”

Hearing her name in a tone of such delicious desperation made complying with the request nearly impossible, but she managed to still her hips. “Too rough?” she asked, searching for a visible explanation and finding only flushed cheeks, wide pupils, and several tendrils of hair that had come loose from their polished chignon. _Not nearly so composed **now** , is she_?

“Too _good_ ,” Georgina explained. The expression she received in return strongly suggested she might have been speaking a foreign language, so she clarified. “Coming quietly has never been one of my stronger suits. Not in _any_ sense of the term.”

“I _knew_ it. I _knew_ you’d be a screamer.” A slow smile spread over Esmé’s face. “The smart ones usually are. It’s hardly something to be shy about.” She lowered her voice. “ _Particularly_ not with me.”

“There’s a difference between shyness and discretion,” said Georgina. “And I wouldn’t say _screamer_.”

“Oh?” One perfectly-sculpted eyebrow quirked upward in amusement. “What would you say instead?”

Deciding that a more perfect set-up was unlikely to present itself, she seized the opportunity. “I’d say that if you have dinner with me next Saturday, you might find out.”

“Then I’d say I’ll be there at seven,” Esmé replied evenly, but Georgina could have sworn she looked impressed.

At that moment, however, the unmistakable babble of a crowd of people breaking into relieved conversation after a protracted and monotonous toast drifted through the door, and Georgina took several hasty steps toward the elevator. Having checked her reflection in the mirrored ceiling, the guest of honor paused with her hand on the doorknob to cast a glance over her shoulder. “Oh, Georgina?”

 _That was quick_ , the nagging little voice of her insecurities supplied as she turned back to face her. _She’s coming to her senses already. Watch, she’s just about to remember her great-aunt’s birthday party next Saturday, right before she loses your number._ “Yes?”

The mischievous glint in Esmé’s eyes was unmistakable even from across the landing. “Make sure it’s something _in_.” With that, she flung the door wide and strode into the penthouse to greet the waiting crowd.

This was the first time Georgina could ever recall experiencing relief, admiration, arousal, and exasperation as complementary emotions, but as the elevator doors closed on Esmé’s retreating form, she began to suspect that it would not be the last.


End file.
